This just shows how far to the right the Republican Party has moved in the United States. In this country, Radio talk-show host Michael Savage is considered to be a main-stream Republican and conservative. His show appeals directly to the base of the Republican Party.But in Great Britain, they're a bit more honest. There, they have a list of 22 people who are banned from entering their country because they contribute to "spreading hatred". The list includes such people as Fred Phelps, whose Westboro Baptist Church pickets the funerals of soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying they died because God is punishing the United States for supporting homosexuals.
Also on the list is Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard Don Black, who started the Stormfront website -- one of the oldest white supremacist websites on the internet, and Eric Gliebe, chairman of the National Alliance, which is one of the largest neo-Nazi hate groups in America.
Michael Savage is also on the list, under his real name Michael Alan WIENER (how appropriate!). Wiener made the list because he's seen as "seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts and fostering hatred which might lead to inter-community violence."
The British Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, would only name 16 of the 22 hate-mongers on the banned list. I don't know why they wouldn't name the other six -- maybe they want us to guess. My guess is Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Michelle Malkin and Sean Hannity.
Aren't those six just as good at spreading hate as Wiener and Phelps?
Of course you would moderate comments. You cheer on censoring people whose ideas you dont like.
ReplyDeleteYou are doing great at advocating the 'modern' liberal tradition. Any speech you hate, is 'hate speech.' Silence it.
Thank you!
ReplyDeletePerhaps Savage spreads hate because his name is Wiener.
ReplyDeleteWiener. Hahahahahahahaha.
Wiener made the list because he's seen as "seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts and fostering hatred which might lead to inter-community violence."Could you cite any examples of how he has allegedly done this? Have you ever listened to his show?
ReplyDeleteYou're right, how appropriate is Wiener.
ReplyDeleteDead on about those other six, though. I couldn't think of any others.
I didn't ban him, CT. Those are the words and actions of the British government.
ReplyDeleteI didn't ban him, CT. Those are the words and actions of the British government.Which you blindly accept without a scintilla of evidence.
ReplyDeleteHere's a quote that captures my reaction perfectly.
And of course we all know that governments never make mistakes about these sorts of things.
ReplyDeleteCan you say Cat Stevens?
You sound like you're a Wiener fan, CT.
ReplyDeleteI listen to him, but I also watch Keith Olberman. That doesn't make me a Keith Olberman fan.
ReplyDeleteMichael Savage is often provocative and abrasive, but that doesn't put him in the same class as the other 21 named people on the "least wanted" list. I've been listening to Savage for several years, and I've never once heard him advocate violence, as the British Home Secretary alleges.
Savage is a study in contrasts.
He's a self-described conservative, but he's in no way in the hip pocket of the Republican Party. When the Dubai Ports deal broke awhile back, I first heard about it on the Michael Savage Show. Like most on the Left, he was dead set against it, and even had Senator Schumer on his show denouncing it.
He's said some pretty outrageous things about gays, but when a pro-Israel gay activist was found dead in an elevator shaft under very suspicious circumstances (he had gone to the building allegedly to attend an Arabic class), Savage was the lone voice in the San Francisco media demanding that the SFPD not sweep this under the rug and call it an accident - yet for all his efforts, members of the gay community continued to villify him (no good deed goes unpunished!). He eventually gave up that crusade.
Savage has taken on the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on more than one occasion, mostly in regards to their alleged funding of terrorism. CAIR took out-of-context comments from the Savage Show and used them in an attack ad. Savage countered by suing CAIR for copyright infringement, primarily to get access to CAIR's financial books through the discovery process (the case was eventually dropped).
Savage is no dummy; he has a Ph.D. in Nutritional Ethnomedicine. He's also a master raconteur and wordsmith (which is probably the main reason I listen to his show). His lastest of 25 books, Psychological Nudity, recounts stories of him growing up in New York City in the 40's and 50's. I haven't bought the book, but readings on his show have been thoroughly entertaining. The man can really turn a phrase, both in writing and in the spoken word.
Do I agree with everything that Michael Savage says? Absolutely not! Do I think that some of the things he's said over the years (most notably about gays and autistic children) are incredibly cruel and totally unacceptable? You bet I do! But is he such a danger to Great Britain that he should be banned from the country? I don't think so.
Jobsanger, I thought you were of the "old school" of Free Speech: "I may disagree with you, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." What happened?
He has the right to say what he wants, and the Brits have the right to ban him.
ReplyDeleteSo, you believe in freedom of speech - just not the free flow of ideas across borders, hm?
ReplyDeleteThat goes a long way in explaining why you're so enamored with Castro's Cuba.
We'll see in the next few days and weeks whether the British people will stand for this kind of censorship in the absence of any kind of real threat to them.
CT, don't waste your time, Jobsanger is just another Fascist with a smile on his face.
ReplyDeleteHe has posted other threads denoucing the like of Savage as hate speech and wants to hold thim as complicit when a looney toon like Poplawski, the guy who killed the cops in PA.
When called on his Fascist ways, Jobsanger will do what any other liberal/progressive pseudo intelectual does: lie,deney and deflect.
B-
ReplyDeleteYou need to take a polital science course. Fascists are right-wingers. I am a socialist, and proud of it.
CT-
ReplyDeleteOur own government bans certain fundamentalist Muslim mullahs because of their rabid, inflammatory, anti-American speech. Am I to understand that you think our government is wrong for doing this?
"You need to take a polital science course. Fascists are right-wingers. I am a socialist, and proud of it."
ReplyDeleteNazism, officially National Socialism
-per wikipedia
You need to take a bunch of political science courses, among others.
Just because the Nazis called their movement National Socialism doesn't make them socialists. They didn't meet any of the requirements necessary to be a socialist government.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Bush called himself a conservative, and then turned out to be the biggest spender of any president.
Yesterday I predicted the following:
ReplyDelete"We'll see in the next few days and weeks whether the British people will stand for this kind of censorship in the absence of any kind of real threat to them."
In the meantime, the Daily Mail started an online poll: "Should U.S. shock-jock [sic] Mike Savage be banned from the UK?"
Here's a link to it.
You'll have to vote to see the results. Go ahead and vote yes, jobsanger; it won't affect the results much. It's currently running 21% yes and 79% no.
Bodacious is right, though; I'm wasting my time. It seems that to you, it doesn't matter what the people think. If the all-powerful government provides the people with cradle-to-grave security (like the British National Health Service), then that government reserves the right to censor anyone they deem threatening to their power.
"Our own government bans certain fundamentalist Muslim mullahs because of their rabid, inflammatory, anti-American speech. Am I to understand that you think our government is wrong for doing this?"
ReplyDeleteNo, what I'm saying is that Michael Savage is neither rabid, inflammatory, nor anti-British. He's a person who holds views that are antithetical to the Labour government's efforts to appease the rabid, inflammatory and anti-British jihadists that inhabit Great Britain. That's hardly a reason to ban someone from entering your country.
The right needs hate to survive.
ReplyDelete"The right needs hate to survive."
ReplyDeleteCan I borrow that? I want to laminate it for my wallet. :)
How's about this one: "The left needs slogans when it runs out of valid arguments"?
Hey, brother dave,
ReplyDeleteI've been feeling a little under the weather lately. Do you mind if I hate you? - just for a little while, until I get my strength back.
Thanks. I knew you'd understand.
Seemed to be a lot of right-wing slogans at the teabagging orgies.
ReplyDelete